North Korea urges South Korea, U.S. to cancel military exercises

North Korea is warning the U.S. and South Korea against conducting their upcoming joint military exercises held every year in February and March.

North Korea says that the exercises are a "dangerous" provocation, reports Fox News. "We sternly warn the U.S. and the South Korean authorities to stop the dangerous military exercises which may push the situation on the peninsula and the North-South ties to a catastrophe," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement.

The joint military exercises are held every year in order to increase security and strengthen ties between South Korea and the U.S.

The warnings this year are weaker than the threats North Korea made last year of nuclear attacks towards both countries' capitals, notes The Associated Press.

North Korea claims to want closer relations between the Korean countries, but said it would not stop its nuclear weapons program that South Korea asked be a first step, instead preferring South Korea bend over backwards to placate the northern country.

"I don't think North Korea made these proposals believing that South Korea would accept them," Professor Koh Yu-hwan of Seoul's Dongguk University. Instead its likely the country simply wants aid and conciliation efforts.